One

ONE Year Old!

Leila turned One two Saturdays ago, on October 17.  It has been one amazing and spectacular year!  Seen above in her classic ankles-crossed pose, our little princess has won the hearts of many friends and family all around the world.  However, she has won no other hearts more fiercely than her Mom and Dad’s.  Each little trial, and each little joy are time well earned and spent as we have watched Leila grow and mature throughout her first year of life.  How we love her…

We managed to create an international birthday party for Leila at my parent’s home in Holland, along with her Uncle Ben, Aunt Heather, and cousin Eleanor.  I say international because we had a lively video conference with her Indian relatives who were all staying at her Uncle James’ house for the weekend.  After singing Happy Birthday with them and eating lunch, we web-conferenced with Aunt Amy and Uncle Kyle in Seattle for a second round of Happy Birthday.  Quite the delight, and very special to have the technology available to celebrate in worldwide fashion!

Connecting with India

Happy Birthday, Bumblimas!

Make a Wish!

Amy & Kyle's bird's eye view of the cake tasting

Reading a new book with Daddy

Receiving a blessing from older cousin Eleanor

After Leila’s little-Big party, the three of us headed off to Wisconsin where JP spoke at one of our friend’s churches.  It was good to see Pastor Bill and his wife, Amy, settled into their new church after graduating from seminary in May.  We also got to spend time with other seminary friends, Terika and Nick.  It was nice to be able to catch up over a delicious meal and a game of “Ticket to Ride.”  Leila was proud to sit at the table with the adults and share her thoughts on world matters.

Good food, Good friends

We have not been posting very often because we’ve been in the thick of travel and speaking season.  JP just arrived back from a trip out to San Francisco yesterday, and that will be the last of the out-of-town travel (we think!) until we head back to India in January.  We feel that the September and October travel was necessary, and rewarding, and blest, but it sure feels good to be home together for a couple of months.  Through all of it, Leila has been a trooper, adjusting and adapting to the new places and the new people with amazing flexibility.  We could sense the change in her, however, after we came home from Wisconsin and she recognized that she was home to stay.  She seems to sleep and eat better, and her little monkey-smile comes out more regularly.

In honor of Leila’s Birthday, we’ve complied this pictorial growth chart for you to enjoy!!

One Year (holland)

11 Months (holland)

10 Months (holland)

9 Months (holland)

8 Months (holland)

7 Months (india)

6 Months (india)

5 Months (holland)

4 Months (seattle)

3 Months (holland)

2 Months (holland)

1 Month (holland)

1 Day (zeeland)

How great is our God!

Thank you for this gift of a daughter, our little Leila Ruth.

Weekend Crazy-ness

Life can be sometimes so very hectic.   Jobs can become demanding, school work may pile up, while your social obligations spiral out of control.   To grant respite from that syndrome, we celebrate Labor Day.  A day in which we stop working so we can spend time doing other, more pleasurable things that will re-charge your batteries and celebrate the lives we lead.   It was exactly that sort of weekend for us.   Fortunately for Katy and me, life doesn’t change too much.  We constantly live into this chaos and love it (most of the time).  This weekend was no exception.

On Friday night, Katy and I went out on a date.   It was a double-date with our friends Dan and Teresa.   We got Leila a babysitter (the lovely aunt Betsy) and we drove out to Grand Rapids to have dinner at this new restaurant called, “The Electric Cheetah.”  As strange as that name might sound, it was one of the best restaurants we had been to in quite some time.  The food was delicious, the atmosphere…well… electric, but most of all, it was good to just head out and celebrate the weekend with people we love.   Leila did well that night!:)

Saturday opened up quietly.   Beula and her friend Becca stopped by to say hi and meet Leila.   Beula is getting married in January and has requested that Leila be her flower girl (even if she can’t walk by then!).   I (JP) will also be involved in the wedding as the emcee.   It was good to see the bride and her flower girl getting to know each other.  They got along splendidly.   Later that afternoon, Katy and I were joined by our dear friends Chris and Lindsay Zeller.  Our destination this time was the zoo!   This was Leila’s first excursion into the zoo.   She has lately preferred to ride on daddy’s backpack (versus the stroller) as she can get an unobstructed 360 degree view of everything.  And for those of you who have gotten to know Leila, you know that she is VERY curious about EVERYTHING!

Sunday came along.   We were still not ready to breathe normally.  We took Leila to the nursery in church.  Handed her over to the lovely people at the nursery, slapped on a name tag on Leila, picked up our pager and made our way to the sanctuary.  We were able to sit through the whole service for the first time since October of 2008, without a baby that was ornery!   I must admit, Katy and I kept looking at each other and wondering when that pager would go off!  It did not.  Jayme Aalberts took wonderful care of Leila that morning.   In the afternoon, we headed back up to Grand Rapids to have a barbeque with our dear friend Lori.   The food was spectacular.  Katy and Lori can cook up a storm together.   I benefited greatly from that partnership.

Monday…yeah… we are not done yet.   Monday, the Wings had a family get-together at a park here in Holland.  The menu was chicken, both grilled and fried, from KFC!  Leila’s cousin Eleanor was there to join in the festivities with her parents.   We had, again, GREAT food, relaxing walks, and just good ol’ fashioned family time which was good for the heart.   Monday night, my friend Miki joined us for a couple of days.  Miki and I went to college together over 10 years ago.  She is from Japan but currently just finished up some grad work at the University of Washington.  Before heading back to Osaka, she decided to make a quick jaunt over to the mid-west to meet up with us.  It was truly special to have her with us.  I enjoy introducing Katy (and Leila) to people in my life who were such an integral part of my college experience.  Miki was an important section of that chapter.

Miki left this morning.   We have a “quiet” week to negotiate now.  Sunday begins the first of many Sundays when I will be speaking in places all over the U.S.  It was truly the perfect way for us to celebrate with friends and family.  We trust that regardless of where you are, you have weekends like that (even if it is not that busy or full).   Here are a sampling of pictures… enjoy!

Lori Aunty and Leila

Space Monkey?

The Other Monkeys

Beula and Becca with Leila

Katy and Leila

My beautiful women

Learning to walk with Ava

The Gang

Glen Lake

the view at Big Glen

We spent Tuesday up north in Glen Lake.  It was a two-fold trip.  We went mainly to celebrate my Dad’s 60th birthday (on the 6th) and my Mom’s 60th birthday (on the 8th).  Neither of my parents seem anywhere near the ripe old age of 60.  I told them that I think there must be some sort of miscalculation.  My brother, Ben, along with his wife, Heather, and daughter, Eleanor, were up for vacation, and even my 82 year old grandmother made it for a delicious Steak lunch and Birthday cake.  It was good for my soul to be up north.  It was good to hang out with family, and it was especially fun to see Leila interacting with her relatives.

Leila with the Birthday Girl and Boy (Ava and Tata)

Eleanor and Leila

Leila with Great Grammie

We also went north so that we could “say good bye to the ol’ place,” as my dad put it as we were about to leave on Wednesday morning.  My parents have lived next to Big Glen Lake for nearly 13 years, but the time has come for them to move on.  (JP and I are particularly excited that they will be located in Holland for the next chapter of life… at least until the chapter after that begins.)  I was very thankful for this opportunity to have my “good bye” day in Glen Lake.  My family moved to Glen Lake after my sophomore year in college, and while it never felt exactly like home, it has become a favorite place of mine.  From the beautiful drive up from Holland, to the scenic hikes and picnic spots, the Glen Arbor area won my heart long ago.  During our day there, we were able to do two of my three favorite things…  We walked down to Old Settler’s Park, which my family has done at least a thousand times, and we played on the swings with the little ladies.  I’m not sure that I have ever played on the swings at the park, but hey, it is Leila’s very favorite thing to do these days.  We also walked out on the dock, which is where I took the photo at the top of the blog.  Later on that night, we sat in the backyard around a bonfire and roasted s’mores.  I love to sit by a fire, and even better, I love to eat s’mores.  It felt good to my soul, and my stomach!  The only thing  guess I missed out on was one last trip to the Cherry Republic.  When my sister, Amy, worked there I learned to appreciate just how yummy All Things Cherry can be.  If you have not been there, You MUST Go.

The good news is that I won’t be staying away from the beauty of Glen Arbor  for the rest of my life.  I learned to dislike and avoid official goodbyes long ago, and simply put, Glen Lake is a place I must return to.  So even when I won’t have my parent’s home to visit, I know I will go there, and my soul will be glad.

Dad and Mom at Old Settler's Park

Some photos from the past couple of weeks…

Showing Off

One day after Leila turned 1/2 year old, our niece, Judith, turned one month old. In honor of the occasion, JP and I tried our hand at taking (me) and fine tuning (JP) baby portraits of Judith. It was a very fun project. We want to show off our handiwork, I suppose, but mostly we want to show off our cutie little niece. Enjoy!!

the first day of SPRING…

HAPPY SPRING !!!!!

(and Happy birthday to Katy!)

Our Little Dwarf… 3 Months

Sleepy Dwarf

I’m certain that some of you may think that we’ve fallen off the planet. We do apologize for not posting more often, but December sort of ran away with us, and we’re just now getting back. You already know that JP’s parents came for a visit, but you may not have known that my parents as well as my siblings and their families came for the Christmas celebration this year. Our house was bursting at the seams with good people, good food, and good times… not to mention a porch that leaked!!

Take a look at this beauteous family…

Family!!

The best part of the holidays was being able to have all of our family together, though I should apologize to that precious family for being a bit crabby at times. (It was trying, at times, to have so much going on while also taking care of a baby with little-to-no sense of schedule.) It was a BIG year for the Wings, with a new brother-in-law (Kyle,) and two new babies (Eleanor and Leila). What a treat to be all together. You can’t tell from the picture, but it was a big year for the Sundararajans as well, with a new sister-in-law (Anita,) and one new baby (Leila,) and one on the way (James & Anita’s due in March.) Soon we’ll all be together too… looking like mid-March.

Wouldn’t you know, our camera lens broke about four days before Christmas and had to be sent in to be fixed. And then, because they called the wrong phone while JP was in India, we’ve just now gotten the camera back in our possession. We may have missed Leila’s first Christmas… … but we did get her 3 month pictures! All the pictures of Leila in this blog are from her three month birthday.

Big Girl

Leila is doing great… sleeping on more of a schedule these days, and happy as a lark most of the time. She loves to share her thoughts and opinions with anyone in the room, can hold onto her toys when she wants to, and rolled over once. Each day seems to prompt a new skill or experience, which is exciting for both Leila and her parents.

Look Dad, I can hold this ball!!

Happy Dwarf

Here’s to 2009!!

First few days with the Indian Tata and Ava

Tata and Ava are the telugu terms for grandpa and grandma.   We are teaching Leila to call her relatives using her Telugu words… so far she still thinks they all sound alike.   Then again, I hate to be the one to break the news to her that while we do want her to learn English and Tamil, she has to call her relatives in Telugu.

I wanted to share some photos from the past couple of days.  It has been wonderful to have my parents here in the US.  For the very first time, they got to meet Leila and they got to play in the snow.  As cold as this week has been, our hearts have been kept quite warm!:)

Four Years

JP and I celebrated four years of marriage on Thursday!

Wow!  YAY!

(marital bliss)

This year JP decided that we should get a Garmin (with the Thank You points from our credit card– THANK YOU very much, indeed– and a little kick-in from our bank account) for our Anniversary.  I was a bit skeptical.  I was concerned that it would just be a price-y piece of technology that would do many of the things that we could already do using our other price-y pieces of technology.  I thought this had more to do with JP’s addiction to gadgets than a real “need.”  However, it just took one trip to Grand Rapids for an Anniversary date to convince me that this little gadget was not only something we needed, but something we should have never tried to get along without.   It was a great gift to our marriage!

We don’t fight about directions all that much, but we do, shall I say, stress about directions often.  I’m not sure why, but JP likes to second guess the directions that I give him.  This has always frustrated me because, of course, I am right about the directions I’m giving at least 99.9% of the time.  (!!)  However, JP’s second guessing me isn’t nearly as bad as the consequences.  You see, when JP realizes that I’ve made an accurate assessment of where we need to be turning or going and he didn’t listen, he generally panics and makes haphazard judgments.  Last summer, for example, he took the next “exit,” which turned out to be another highway, and then there were no exits for MANY miles, and then we had to navigate back to the original highway after getting on the wrong highway.  Ugh.  40 minute detour.  As I said, it can be very stressful.  So, with the Garmin, when JP failed to listen carefully to the directions given by the Garmin and missed a turn, the Garmin realized this right away and gave us immediate access to recalculated directions.  We found our way between babysitter and restaurant without a hitch, really.  Praise God because I think we would have arrived at the restaurant in tears otherwise.  (We get turned around in cities– even small ones like GR.)  Plus, and this was very cool, the Garmin knew that there was an accident holding up traffic on the way there, and gave us different directions as soon as it knew about the accident.  This little gadget is going to be incredibly helpful.

helped us focus on being safe in the snow rather than worry about directions!!

dedication #1… This blog is dedicated to Betsy who gave us gift certificates to the restaurant of choice for our Anniversary date, Cygnus 27, in the Amway Grand.  It was a fantastic meal!  JP had the Lamb Tagine, and I had the Beef Nasi Goreng.  We highly recommend both meals.  They took very good care of us, and because I had mentioned when making the reservation that we were coming in for our anniversary, they gave us the cutest little complimentary dessert…

tiny fondue

I also should mention that the hotel looked very pretty, dressed up for the holidays.  We took advantage of the moment and posed for some pics.

dedication #2… We also dedicate this blog to Lori, who willingly agreed to be our first official babysitter.  My dad had watched Leila for a short while over Thanksgiving while JP and I went out for coffee, but this was the true test, a whole dinner out!  Everything seems to have gone well, thankfully.  Leila told me that she enjoyed her stay at Lori Auntie’s house, and I think that Leila didn’t wear out her welcome there quite yet.  We sighed a big sigh of relief to have the “first babysitter” experience over and done with.

Thank you to both Betsy and Lori for helping us has a superb anniversary!!

And finally, for those who only check the blog for cute baby pictures…

Leila is Bear-y Cute